Right now Broadway only works well for one purpose — letting people drive out of town as fast as they want. All that high-speed car traffic makes Broadway a terrible street for just about every other purpose, like walking or biking safely, or creating a pedestrian environment where retail businesses can thrive.

The protected bike lane will, of course, make bicycling much less stressful, and that’s a big reason why the redesign is so important. Less obvious — but just as important — are all the other ways the redesign will improve the street.

You can get a feel for these other aspects of the redesign by looking at the performance measures for the Broadway/Lincoln Corridor Study that Denver Public Works released last week [PDF].

The city will judge success by measuring things like crash rates, transit reliability, pedestrian volumes, and yes, bike counts. Planners have been collecting “before” data on these metrics for the past year.

Here’s what Public Works will measure to assess the redesign of the Broadway/Lincoln corridor. Image: DPWImage: DPW

Redesigns need to be in effect for at least several months to accurately assess the impact on traffic, safety, and other metrics. Just a few weeks won’t do (ahem, Boulder). So Denver planners have laid out milestones of six months and 15 months, after which they’ll analyze the data and determine if design adjustments are warranted.

With this approach, Denver aims to avoid repeating Boulder’s mistakes. Last year, political leaders in Boulder abandoned the Folsom Street bike lane project after just a few weeks — not enough time to gauge its effect. The debate in Boulder also centered entirely on vehicle travel times (which were minimally longer, even early on) instead of safety for everyone, including drivers.

The message that Denver is sending with the Broadway project is that great streets do a lot more than move cars, and should be judged accordingly.

Also, the full Broadway/Lincoln redesign is more than just converting an unneeded travel lane to a cycle track. It’s about pedestrian improvements, such as bulb-outs and bus-bulbs, and transit improvements like 24-7 transit only lanes. In addition, the redesign calls for mid-block connections between the two street, excess capacity reduction with added street parking on Lincoln during off-peak times. The redesign is about a complete transformation of the Broadway/Lincoln corridor into one that is much more multi-modal and pedestrian friendly. That will have a tremendously positive effect on the adjacent neighborhoods and it can’t happen soon enough.

David Albiero

Utilize the existing Scenic Trolley tracks that run N/S down the Greenbelt/Platte River, starting at LoHi/15th st/REI (almost Union Station). Those rail lines could be extended East at Alameda (to Broadway/Lincoln, even Cherry Creek/Wash Park), or East at Mississippi to Broadway Lite Rail and swing up Broadway to Colfax and Beyond North. Tying in w the Lite Rail Stations along the way!
If it got extended the “4 Blocks N. to Union Station”, and have a free Parking Lot down at the South end of the Scenic Trolley Line, even to S. Sante Fe, it would relieve a huge amount of traffic into and out of the city at rush hour.
Not to Mention a Street Car/Trolley taking People up and down Broadway! Effectively crossing the Platte River and I25 Barrier.

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